The campaigns of St. Claire and Harrison ( a Virginian) in the Northwest territory during the war of 1812 had brought back an intimate knowledge of that country to every section of Virginia, and fear of the Indians had been reduced to a negative quantity by the terrible drubbing St. Claire had given them at Vincennes. Every family in western Virginia were talking about the fertile valleys of Ohio and the beautiful prairies of Indiana, and certainly half of them resolved to go to that new country. People inured to the frontier life are always the first to move on when the community begins to fill up with settlers. They want elbow room. Newly wedded farmer folks can get a start easier in a new country where land is cheap, so the younger half of the Spaid family resolved to go to Ohio. What induced the aged parents (both were then sixty years old) to go with these children we cannot tell, for they had a good farm, a large house, and three of their children were married and lived in the community. The four Spaid families (William married in a year or two) established their homes at the junction of the Seneca and Buffalo forks of Wills creek. They owned four farms in a row; Mary Hellyer's was the easternmost; then Elizabeth Secrest's; then Michael Spaid's; and William's farm adjoined Michael's on the west. We had forgotten to say that Elizabeth had married Henry Secrest, Mary married George Hellyer, and Christina married Captain James Anderson, before this migration to Ohio. A few years after coming to Ohio, Nancy, the youngest daughter married William Frye and they located up the Buffalo fork about three miles from the brothers and sisters. It seems that the parents did not locate on a farm themselves but lived in a log hut on Michael's farm.
Luther Spaid says his grandfather bought all this land and gave each child a farm. Each family lived in a log house in the woods, and all of them had to work like the mischief to clear out fields to raise gardens and crops. The oak timber was the best in the world, and to split enough rails to fence in their "clearings" was not so big a task. Game was plentiful at that time, and the streams were full of fish. The year of the Hegira was 1819 in the autumn, and in June, 1821, the Elizabeth Cale Spaid died and was buried at Hopewell, a little cemetery on a hill less than a mile west of William's farm. It was the only cemetery in that section at that date, for Mt. Zion cemetery was started in 1828, and Buffalo still later. She was sixty-two years old at the time of her death, but we never heard what caused her death. Nor can we tell anything definite about her, though the writer well knew Aunt Nancy and Uncle William and could have gotten all sorts of information from them, but at that time was less interested in family history.
Some time after the Elizabeths' death George Spaid married Barbara Albin, the widow of James Albin, a Revolutionary soldier who had gone from Hampshire county to Ohio many years before the Spaids. They continued to live in a cabin on the farm of Michael Spaid. One day in the summer of 1833 Barbara and Margaret (Michael's wife) went to a neighbors for an all day quilting party, leaving Christina, Michael's oldest daughter, to care for the children and prepare dinner. She was to call her grandfather when dinner was ready to come eat with them. He lived down over a bank from Michael's home in a sheltered cove only a short distance away. When dinner was prepared Christina went to tell her grandsire dinner was ready. A rail fence with bars separated the two cabins, and when the sixteen year old girl reached the bars she found the old man lying dead with his cane lying across his chest. Knowing that it was nearly dinner time, he had evidently started for the son's home and was stricken with heart failure, on the way. Everything indicated that he had died without a struggle. He was buried by the side of Elizabeth at Hopewell and an excellent dressed sand-stone monuments mark their graves. His is proving the better stone and every word is discernible as may be seen in the picture. The Grandmother's gravestone is now scaled off so that part of the epitaph cannot be read. Fortunately the writer copied it thirty years ago. Barbara, his widow, went to live with her daughter, Mrs. Peter Jordan, about ten miles away, and lived to a great age, but when she died, was brought and buried by the side of her first husband, James Albin, at Hopewell.
The original Spaid family in America, then, consisted of parents and children as follows:
(1) George Nicholas Spaid, born in Germany, Dec. 22, 1759 died in Ohio, June 15, 1833
(2) Elizabeth Cale, born in Virginia, in 1759 died in Ohio in June, 1821
(3) John Spaid born Aug. 19, 1783--- died Mar. 02, 1862
(4) Frederick Spaid born Dec. 03, 1784--- died Jan. 28, 1872
(5) Elizabeth Spaid born July 23, 1790--- died May 22, 1862
*(6) Mary Spaid born Dec. 06, 1793--- died Apr. 07, 1870
** (7) Michael Spaid born Oct. 01, 1795--- died May 26, 1872
(8) Christina Spaid born Oct. 11, 1797--- died Oct. 10, 1881
(9) William Spaid born Jan. 07, 1800--- died Mar. 28, 1890
(10) Nancy Spaid born Feb. 10, 1806--- died Dec. 9, 1884
(11) Richard Spaid, died in early youth.
* My family descended from Mary Spaid Hellyer
** The author of this book was descended from Michael Spaid |
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